A Rogue Walks into a Ball Read online

  For a moment, Sarah allowed herself to imagine that this Hallaway family finding-love-at-a-ball enchantment might work in her favor, that Jack might actually become attracted to her. She and he had encountered each other at balls three times now, in Hampshire, at the ball held at Boxhaven House, and at the Winstonhurst ball, and perhaps it was the case that the magic might not take hold at the first encounter but accrue over time and blossom at a subsequent meeting at a ball. She didn’t think she was mistaken that he’d enjoyed talking and dancing with her at the Winstonhurst ball.

  What would it be like if they were to meet at a ball and some chance spark of fate flashed, changing the relationship between them? In her mind’s eye, their gazes met across a crowded room, and he drew close and whispered her name. And in that whisper, a tentative and yearning sound, she would hear how much he wanted to dance with her, and so much more.

  Lost in her reverie, Sarah hadn’t noticed the turn the conversation in the room had taken, until the word nieces impressed itself on her.

  “They do have names,” Fiona was saying. “You can’t be calling them the Keating nieces, Kate, now that they’re here in Town. It makes them sound like they aren’t individuals.”

  “I don’t see why not,” Kate said mischievously. “They are the Keating nieces, and as far as I can tell, they are interchangeable.”

  “People can’t be interchangeable,” Fiona said mildly, surely accustomed, in the give-and-take of the Hallaway family, to outrageous statements. “Maryanne is sweet-tempered and a bit quiet, though certainly not at all shy. And Elizabeth is a most engaging conversationalist.” Fiona paused. “They are both accounted to be quite handsome ladies.”

  “There you have it, then, Jack,” Kate said with a wink.

  If Sarah had not been sitting so close to him, she might not have heard his soft groan.

  “They will both be at the Merrywether ball,” Fiona said, “and I’m certain we shall all enjoy getting to know them better. And Jack, of course, will wish to dance with them.”

  “Of course,” he said. Jack might or might not wish to dance with the Keating nieces, but if his mother wished him to do so, Sarah knew that he would. They sounded like perfectly nice young ladies, and for all she knew, they were. What was obvious was that they were just the sort of ladies Jack’s family thought would be suitable for him. Just the sort of ladies with whom, Fiona no doubt hoped, Jack might fall in love at a ball.

  Though the Hallaways were all terribly kind, Sarah was sure it had not occurred to any of them that she, Sarah, might be the sort of woman with whom Jack might fall in love at a ball.

  Because, it went without saying, she wasn’t.

  Sarah heaved a heavy inward sigh. Fate had always had a streak of mischief where she was concerned, so was it really surprising that it would work its Hallaway magic only on her?

  Jack popped a final biscuit in his mouth and reflected that Sarah, sitting a foot and a half away from him on the divan, looked pretty in her yellow-and-white-striped gown. The color was doing something to accentuate the golden lights in her hair in a way that made him think of a jar of honey sitting in sunlight.

  She was reaching for a biscuit, and as if she felt his eyes lingering on her, she paused with her hand hovering over the plate and glanced at him.

  “Did you want another?” she asked. There were three biscuits left.

  “No, thank you.” It was just as well that she thought he was looking her way only because of the biscuits, because... well, because she was Sarah Porter, Alice’s friend’s cousin, and she was squarely in the wholesome realm of people his mother had invited to tea, which did not, in fact, encompass a large group of people. Teatime at his mother’s house was not a social event, it was when the Hallaways were most at home with each other. Which made anyone who came to tea with regularity almost like family. Or at the very least, a friend of the family.

  Which was what Sarah Porter had become, a friend of the family. She and Annabelle had been folded into the tea routine not just because Alice liked Annabelle, but because they all found Annabelle and Sarah to be people who fit among them. It was funny how that sort of thing could happen so quickly. They’d met Annabelle and Sarah only a few weeks before, but Jack felt as though he’d known them longer. Well, Sarah anyway, since it was hard to get a word in with Annabelle when Alice was around.

  “Are you certain?” Sarah asked, her hand still arrested over the biscuit plate.

  Damn, he must have been staring. But the graceful length of her arm was distracting him. She moved gracefully, he’d noticed. Waltzing with her at the Winstonhurst ball, he’d experienced an unexpected sense of union, of the two of them moving as one, as though they shared a wordless understanding. He’d waltzed with countless ladies who danced well, but that waltz with Sarah had been different.

  He realized that he wanted to dance with her again, to see if he would experience that sense of union again. And he wondered if she’d felt it too. He also really wanted to touch her again, and the waltz gave him permission to do that. Which left him with the uncomfortable knowledge that he wanted to do things to Sarah Porter, friend of the family. Sarah, who was looking at him over a plate of biscuits with a politely raised eyebrow.

  He managed a regretful shake of his head intended to suggest an awareness that he must practice self-control. “I’ve already eaten a shameful amount.”

  “He really has,” Alice called from across the room, her ears, as ever, attuned to anyone else’s lapse in behavior.

  Sarah hid a smile, though not before he caught the beginnings of it, and selected a biscuit. That little hidden smile and the way that, for a moment, it had brought a sparkle to her eyes, made him suspect she’d thought of a smart comment to add but had resisted saying it because it wasn’t appropriate for a room full of other people. She and he had said any number of inappropriate things to each other, generally when they knew no one else was listening.

  Putting aside the tenor of their conversations, which had not always been polite, they’d shared conversations of more substance than he’d had with anyone else of late. He liked talking with her, and while he was being truthful with himself, he might as well admit that he’d begun looking forward to seeing her at tea. He would have been disappointed if she hadn’t been there that day. She was very good company.

  His mouth twisted thoughtfully. As far as he knew, Sarah had no suitors. At Society events, he never saw her talking with gentlemen, at least none who weren’t doddering. She was twenty-five and thus would not be in the group of younger ladies more recently “out” among whom gentlemen were actively seeking a wife. His own mother had remarked to him that it was a shame Sarah had such a distinctive nose, and he was hardly unaware of what gentlemen found attractive in ladies.

  But now that he knew her, he didn’t see her nose anymore, or rather, he saw it as simply part of her, and he didn’t see it as anything that ought to keep people from knowing her. The gentlemen of the ton were fools not to realize that Sarah Porter was quite handsome. It was just, he supposed, that her handsomeness was not something everyone could appreciate.

  But he could. He’d had the chance to look at her a second time, and a third, and more, and now he knew the exact curve her mouth made when she smiled, and he knew, from casual observation, that she didn’t like clothes with flounces on them. And that, when she thought no one could hear, she whispered extremely silly endearments to Socrates.

  He wanted to kiss her.

  Since he could not, for so many reasons, starting with the fact that they were in his mother’s sitting room, he leaned back against the divan, draping an arm over the back. “So, have you made any plans for this solo traveling jaunt you mean to embark on after the Season’s over?”

  She looked surprised at his choice of topic. But then, she wasn’t aware that he was trying to think of things that would enable him to pay less attention to the shape of her dusky pink lips, which came together in a luscious bow.

  She took a sip of
her tea and put her cup on the table. “I haven’t pledged to travel on my own, you know. I just hadn’t thought yet of who might go with me. Perhaps I shall hire a companion. Or perhaps I’ll wait a bit. I’ve been thinking that I might like to take work as a governess.”

  That startled a laugh out of him. “Work as a governess? Have you lost your mind?” He knew that she had a generous allowance from her stepfather, some Irish landowner, and that she had a home in England, should she desire it, with her uncle Smith.

  “Lost my mind?” She laughed. “That seems an extreme reaction to a fairly innocuous idea.”

  “Women run screaming from manor houses in this country on a daily basis, driven out by spoiled charges and demanding families,” he said. “Why on earth would you take on such work when you have no need?”

  She lifted her chin. “Because I think that I might like to be a governess to a nice young lady, just for the fun of it.”

  “‘Fun’ and ‘governess’ are not words that usually appear together,” he pointed out. Quite needlessly, he thought.

  “Nonsense, I like young ladies. They’re very interesting.” Her eyes flicked across the room to where Annabelle was describing something to Alice with a gesture that involved wiggling her fingers. Sarah lowered her voice a bit, though close as they were on the divan, their conversation probably wasn’t audible to the others anyway. “Take my cousin, for example,” she said. “With a little guidance, see how she’s bloomed?”

  He gave her a dry look. “So you mean to claim the victory in her case?”

  “It would perhaps be a bit presumptuous of me to claim sole credit for her transformation,” she allowed.

  “Especially since I did all of the work.”

  “But I arranged it,” she said, smugness teasing the edges of her mouth. “And anyway, Annabelle is really the one who did all the hard work. She just needed someone to help her think about things differently. I liked helping her with that, and I’ve loved being with her. If I found the right young lady—and since my allowance affords me some choice in what I do—I might consider being a governess as a sort of interesting challenge, instead of it being something done out of desperation.”

  “That would be an... unusual thing to do.”

  But then, she was unusual. She was certainly willing to try unusual things, as evidenced by her solution for her cousin’s shyness. When he found himself wondering just how uninhibited she might be, he caught himself with a little jerk of awareness.

  Good God. What was wrong with him? Clearly, he’d stayed too long at tea.

  Jack stood up. If he left now, he’d have time to work on the nun story before he met Eastham at the club later. Writing, he’d found, was most helpfully distracting.

  “Jack,” Alice called from across the room, “will you take me and Annabelle to see She Knew She Was Right again?”

  He gave a groan meant to suggest he was much put upon. “What, again? You’ve already seen it twice.”

  “But it’s wonderful, and Annabelle’s only seen it once.”

  “Only once, the deprived girl,” Jack said. “If you insist, then we’ll ask Sarah too, since you two will just abandon me to your giggling anyway.”

  Sarah glanced up at him, an awkward expression on her face, and he couldn’t blame her. It was only polite for him to have asked her as well, but he knew that politeness had not been what made him ask.

  “Please don’t feel you have to—” Sarah began.

  But Jack leaned down toward her—she was still sitting—and said in a lowered voice, “I don’t mind going again, actually, but don’t tell Alice, or we’ll be there every night.”

  “Oh.” Was she blushing? Why would she blush over an invitation to see a play she’d already seen? And why did he want her to blush? Because he did. He wanted to make her blush, and so much more.

  He wanted her.

  She was an innocent woman of twenty-five, however world-wise she was in other respects. She wasn’t a merry widow or a woman looking for dalliance. She wasn’t even looking for a husband—she’d certainly made that clear.

  What, exactly, was he thinking? How much did he want to kiss her? Because that road had only one direction, and it led through courting and straight to marriage. Did he want to think about marriage? He didn’t know.

  “Thank you,” she said. “That would be lovely. I quite liked that play.”

  Perhaps a better man wouldn’t have felt his chest expand at her unwitting praise, but if so, Jack didn’t want to be that man.

  “Think nothing of it,” he said, walking backward toward the door. “We’re friends, after all.”

  Friends, Sarah repeated to herself as the door shut behind Jack. We’re friends. We meant two together, you and I, something shared.

  A stern inner voice—her most familiar inner voice—told her she’d really taken leave of her senses now, trying to spin a comment about friendship into something more. Still, friends... that was something. She hadn’t ever entertained the idea of being friends with a man. In fact, after all the years of teasing and being ignored by men, perhaps she hadn’t ever considered that being friends with a man might be something she’d even want.

  “Where did Jack go?” Kate asked, looking up from her book.

  “Home, I think,” said Fiona.

  “What do you suppose he does all the time in that house all by himself?” Alice asked. “He wasn’t at the Watersons’ dinner party this week, or the musicale we all attended.”

  Sarah had noticed that too.

  Kate laughed. “Oh, I don’t suppose he has too much trouble finding things to entertain himself with that aren’t musicales. For one thing, he probably has a—”

  “Don’t say it,” Fiona warned. “That’s not for polite conversation or, God help us, any conversation we should be having.”

  But they all knew what Kate had been going to say: a mistress. Sarah had thought it herself, had wondered if he had a mistress. After all, she saw him only a few hours a week at tea and sometimes at events around Town. She had no idea what he did with the rest of his time.

  She preferred not to think about such things.

  “Well,” said Alice, “if I could have a whole house all to myself, I would have people over for lunch and dinner all the time, and I’d play the pianoforte in the middle of the night, just because I could.”

  “Jack doesn’t play the pianoforte,” Kate pointed out.

  “That’s not the point,” Alice said.

  “What is the point, then?” Fiona asked dryly.

  “That Jack’s mysterious,” Alice said. “He likes to have fun, so what is he doing when he’s not coming to dinners or musicales?”

  Fiona sighed. “Alice, he’s a gentleman of twenty-nine, and none of this is our business.”

  Alice gave her mother a shrewd look. “Aren’t you worried he’ll never marry if he doesn’t mingle in Society more? He’s becoming rather a lost cause.”

  “Alice! What a thing to say about your own brother.”

  “But he’s shown so little interest in marriage.” Alice paused as though conjuring an image, which caused her to succumb to something between a snort and a laugh. “Maybe he’s going to be one of those really ancient bachelors who finally surrenders to matrimony at age sixty-eight.”

  Annabelle looked horrified by this notion, and Kate said, “Eww. I don’t want to think of Jack as a sixty-eight-year-old bachelor.”

  Alice laughed. “But maybe he likes the idea. What’s to stop him?”

  Kate nodded. “It is completely unfair that ladies can’t travel around and have fun endlessly until they’re sixty-eight.”

  “Well,” Sarah said, “it’s not impossible, if a lady has funds.”

  Fiona lifted a single, skeptical brow in her direction. “No lady truly wants to travel her whole life. A woman wants to build a world around herself.”

  Was that true? Sarah had never considered that she might build her own world, a family and home of her own. Without a man to m
arry her, or at least not one she respected and cared for, she hadn’t spent much time thinking about creating a home. Perhaps she had been too busy thinking of escape from the narrowness of Scarborough village.

  “But a gentleman doesn’t wish to build a world around himself?” she asked.

  Fiona sighed. “Of course they do, but it’s not as pressing.”

  “What Mama means,” Kate said, “is that if Jack doesn’t wish to take on any extra responsibilities any time soon, he needn’t.”

  Fiona frowned. “I wouldn’t put it that way.”

  Sarah had noticed that the Hallaways had an affectionate notion that all Jack did was play. She might not know what he did with all his time, but she knew this picture wasn’t accurate.

  “Jack isn’t just some charming scamp who does nothing but have fun,” she said, surprising herself. After all, this was exactly what she used to think of him. But she didn’t anymore.

  From across the room, Alice shot her an unreadable look. She was the only one in her family to have had recent proof, in what he’d done to help Annabelle, that Jack was so much more than a devil-may-care rogue.

  “Well, of course,” Kate said. “No one’s saying he’s not responsible.”

  But Sarah could tell that, absurdly fond though they clearly were of Jack, they also thought him a lovable rogue with no need to be anything else. Until recently, she would have certainly agreed that he was nothing but an empty-headed rogue, but now... she didn’t.

  Oh, he had the devil in his eyes sometimes, that was true, and she’d come to live for that wicked light to appear. But he was so much more than the man she’d thought he was. His actions were those of a thoughtful man, someone who was, now that she thought about it, a very good observer of life.

  She supposed that families, however much they might love us, didn’t always allow us to change.